Last week, around 4,000 HR professionals, CHROs, HR business partners, coaches, learning and development practitioners, university representatives and people-solutions companies gathered at the Sandton Convention Centre. I walked into Ballroom 4 expecting insight. I didn’t expect a mirror.
Felix Godlo of Deel Local by PaySpace walked onto the stage and shared his story from Survivor South Africa. On the surface, it was a reality-show tale of alliances, hunger and pressure. But the room leaned in because it was also our story. HR professionals fight to survive too. We navigate shifting alliances and impossible expectations. We keep going when we are depleted. Then he invited award-winning leadership coach and bestselling author Marichem Mortimer to take her seat, and the conversation moved from surviving to something harder: sustaining.
When Q&A opened, I did what I have come to do in rooms like this. I asked a question that sits at the heart of my mission to see the carers cared for: “Have you ever been burnt out, and if so, how did you approach it?”
I asked it again in the final session I attended, “The Middle Manager Dilemma: Leading Under Pressure and Constraints,” with CHROs Barney Khumalo, Joseph Rock and Londiwe Mncube.
Why I keep asking
As a coaching psychologist, I know that burnout is rarely loud. It doesn’t announce itself in a boardroom. It looks like the HR leader who is always available, the middle manager absorbing pressure from above and below, the coach who holds everyone’s story but their own. We are trained to hold space for others, and many of us never learned to claim it for ourselves.
So I ask the question in rooms full of senior people because silence around burnout is the real risk. When leaders answer honestly, they give everyone else permission to do the same.
The answer that stayed with me
Londiwe Mncube’s response was disarmingly simple. She shuts down her phone and her social media, and she focuses on her recovery.
There was no elaborate framework and no productivity hack. Her answer was a boundary, and a decision to treat her recovery as real work that deserves her full attention rather than something squeezed in after everything else.
That answer stood out because it reframed rest. In a profession that equates availability with commitment, switching off can feel like a failure. Her answer suggested the opposite: recovery is a responsibility, and sometimes a leadership act. Disconnecting from the noise creates the space to reconnect with yourself.
Lived experience is the strongest curriculum
World Mental Health Month reminds us that awareness campaigns matter, but stories do the heavy lifting. A policy can tell an employee that support exists. A CHRO saying “I have been there, and this is what I did” tells them it is safe to use it.
Felix’s survival story and Londiwe’s recovery story landed because they were lived, not rehearsed. They remind us that wellbeing in the workplace will not be built by wellness days and posters alone. It will be built by people willing to say, “Me too,” and by cultures that respond with care rather than judgment.
Four calls to action
- Ask the question. Next time you are in a room with peers, mentors or your own team, ask: “Have you ever been burnt out, and how did you approach it?” Then listen without fixing. Your curiosity may be the first permission someone has had to be honest.
- Schedule your recovery like you schedule your deadlines. Define what your version of Londiwe’s answer is. Whether it is switching off your phone, stepping away from social media or taking a full day offline, decide it, before you are depleted, and protect it.
- Share your story, at your own pace. You don’t need to disclose everything, but you do need to be honest about something. Leaders who speak openly about their limits change what is normal in their organisations. Start with one trusted colleague.
- Build a culture where support is used, not just offered. Review whether your employee assistance programmes, mental health days and manager training are being accessed. If they aren’t, ask why, and ask employees directly. Support nobody feels safe to use isn’t support.
The invitation
Those 4,000 people in Sandton hold the working lives of millions of South Africans in their hands: hiring, developing, supporting, restructuring and consoling. If we are depleted, everything downstream feels it.
This World Mental Health Month, let’s stop treating our own wellbeing as the last item on the agenda. Ask the question. Take the recovery. Tell the truth. Build the culture.
And if you are reading this while running on empty, consider this your sign to switch off the phone.
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Dr. Joshua Awesome is a Coaching Psychologist/Executive and Business Performance Coach who has supported over 100,000 professionals across Africa and the globe. He can be reached via: joshua@africainmind.org
